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Belgium Continues Blocking Turkey Plan
Belgium will continue blocking NATO efforts to plan for Turkey's defense against potential attacks from Iraq, Belgian Foreign Minister Louis Michel said Sunday. Michel urged the United States to give U.N. inspectors more time and resources to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and backed a reported French-German plan to send U.N. peacekeepers there. France, Belgium and Germany are the only three of NATO's 19 members who don't back preparations to defend the country. They argue it is premature to start the military planning while U.N. efforts to avert war continued. "There are 16 (NATO) countries willing to back the United States, and follow the case for war. We are not there yet," Michel said on a Sunday talk show on VRT television."And we never will be." Under a so-called "silence procedure" agreed upon Thursday, military planning would begin automatically to deploy early warning planes, missile-interceptor batteries and anti-germ warfare units to Turkey — unless any of the allies raises an objection by 10 a.m. Monday. "We are now busy with France and Germany to write a letter to state out our veto right," Michel said. Toldja so. Posted by: Fred Pruitt 2003-02-09 |
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